


Dance

by RioRiley



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21526687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RioRiley/pseuds/RioRiley
Summary: Steve goes back and changes the world.
Relationships: Howard Stark/Maria Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 13





	Dance

Steve walks up to that porch, and knocks lightly on the door to Peggy's modest home. As far as the timeline goes, it's the day after Captain America has plunged the jet into the ocean. He can see her. His beautiful girl sitting on the couch in her living room. She looks heartbroken. He walks up the porch, and knocks softly on the screen door. Two knocks. That was always their thing.

"Steve?" Peggy asks in disbelief. Steve smiles, and strokes her face lovingly. 

"Hey Peg." He says, before breaking down in tears. She grabs him, pulling him as close to her as she can.

"I thought you were dead." Peggy says quietly.

"We've got a lot to catch up on." Steve says with a smile. He knows Peggy can handle the truth. So he tells her everything. He tells her about waking up in New York, feeling like he had missed his entire life, wishing that the crash had killed him instead of preserving him, about Nick Fury, and about the Avengers. Aliens. Technology. He tells her everything. About   
Thanos. About the battle. About the time travel. About Tony, and Sam. He explains that there is still a version of him frozen in the ocean. He tells her what the Siberians are doing to Bucky, and explains that he is flying out the next morning, because he can't let that happen to him again. 

"You still owe me a dance." Peggy says with a smile. Steve cries again. She's not used to seeing him cry so willingly, but understands how overwhelmed he is. Understands how long he has been waiting for that dance. She understands, that not everything is going to make sense. She turns on the record player in the corner of her living room, and They dance close. He holds her against himself, not even moving for a while. Just standing. Holding one another. He kisses her forehead. 

She looks in his eyes. Sees how tired he looks, and yet so genuinely happy. And then, he wraps his arms around her waist, and they start to sway, her head laying against his chest. She wraps her arm around him, holding him. It's a sense of closure. Knowing that he really is there. That the events of the day before didn't mean he was gone forever. She sways with him, holding him close, and taking in his scent. It's different now. He's not exactly the man she is used to. But she knows it's him. She knows he is hers and she will never have to lose him again. That he is always going to come back to her.

The next morning, they both get onto a plane, and fly to Siberia. Steve had protested her coming along, and had only agreed after she explained time and time again, that she refused to stay back. It's cold there. The base looks a lot like Hydras, hidden in the side of a mountain. And it's surprisingly easy for Steve to crack into. He just doesn't happen to know where to find Bucky once he and Peggy are inside. So, they meander the long metal walled corridors, checking inside various rooms, and knocking out the occasional Soviet, until they stumble upon an indistinct room at the end of a hallway. It's guarded by military personal who are less than thrilled about Peggy and Steve being there. But Steve doesn't give a shit. He plows past them, and into the room where Bucky is, chained against a wall. He's unconscious.

"Oh my god." Steve says, quickly placing his hand to cover his mouth and hide the fear in his face.

Steve's in shock. He had been briefed, by Nick Fury about all the things the Soviets had done to Bucky. He knew it was ugly. Knew they tortured him. But he had never imagined just how bad it was, and never thought he would see it. Steve's still. Standing frozen in place, for the first time in a long time, he's scared.

There's blood all over him, slashes that look like he had been whipped, and he's nude. His naked body is covered in bruises, that make Peggy wonder if the soviets had been using Bucky as a punching bag. They haven't even gotten around to giving him the robotic arm yet, and instead, there's just a stump at his shoulder. It's rough, and the incision is jagged. Peggy doesn't even flinch. She just goes to the guards, grabbing the keys off their belts, and bringing it to Bucky's shackles. The third key she tries ends up being the one to unlock him, and once he's freed from the locks, he all but collapses against Steve, without so much as waking up. 

"Buck, buddy i've got you." Steve says quietly. He holds Bucky loosely against him, as he begins to stir. Once he recognises Steve, Bucky starts sobbing. "Hey pal. Let's get you out of here." Bucky nods, Peggy grabs the curtain off the window, wrapping it around Bucky, as they set foot back to the plane. 

Steve lands the plane in New York that night, and Peggy takes him to a hospital to be checked up. The thing is, everyone around him thinks he's dead. He has to remain dead to all of them until they have forgotten about him. And taking Bucky to the hospital himself, a few days after he's crashed a plane into the ocean, looks absolutely suspicious. She comes back with Bucky an hour or so later, and he's all bandaged up. Peggy lies to the doctors and tells them she found him on the street. But it's not like they have the means to fact check her. This is the 40s after all.

They set up a room for him in their basement. 

Steve takes him to Howard Stark, explains parts of the situation, leaving out all the details pertaining to Tony, and enlists his help in building Bucky a humane, normal looking arm. The end product isn't much, Just a tan plastic piece, that Bucky can strap onto his shoulder, and control through various levers, but Steve knows it's so much better than the metal alternative he is used to. 

A year later, in the comfort of their home, Peggy and Steve welcome their first child. However, "comfortable" is the last word Peggy would have used to describe the situation. It consisted of Peggy, with a white knuckle grip on their formica kitchen countertop. Maria, Howard's new girlfriend, acting as a makeshift midwife, while Steve stood at her side, rubbing her back and shoulders, kissing her when she would allow him to do so. The baby, is born after nearly five hours of pushing, and once he comes out, Steve and Peggy slump into the blood covered tile kitchen floor, holding him. He's stillborn. There's nothing anyone can do for him.

There's a long time where Peggy hopes the heartache of losing their son will kill her.

Bucky moves out about a month later, getting a house down the street with a young woman named Brynne. They're married within a few months. Peggy and Steve follow suit, and are married a few months after them, Peggy keeping her own let name in order to preserve Steve's identity.

Brynne and Bucky have welcomed three children into their family, all boys, before Peggy becomes pregnant again. 

This time, the baby comes much quicker. One moment, Peggy and Steve are asleep in their bed, when Peggy water breaks. Steve's gathering their things to get to the hospital and in the five minutes that takes him, Peggy is bracing herself in their bedroom doorway, insisting that the baby isn't going to wait. Steve delivers the baby right there in the doorway. A completely healthy little boy that they name Lyle. Steve is absolutely smitten by him. 

His sisters join their family two years later. Twins. Which was a detail Peggy's doctors hadn't managed to catch beforehand. So, as Peggy is laying in their bed holding a tiny squirming baby girl, Maria, now Howard's wife, stationed in between her legs ready to catch the placenta, everyone is shocked when her eyes are instead met by a tiny foot. The breached delivery is hard on Peggy. And results in her insistence that Steve never have the guts to get her pregnant again. But once they are holding the little girls, everything is worth it. They name them Charlotte and Maurine.

The government is aware of Steve's existence. He uses it to his advantage, and doing so gives his life meaning.

In 1963 he instructs the whitehouse to have Kennedy travel in a covered vehicle in Dallas.

He tells Bush about the things going on in the middle East. The twin towers never fall.

And he does little things too.

He tells Howard to spend more time with his son.

Howard and Maria are never killed. 

And life is good.


End file.
